North Carolina Newspapers

Page TWO THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1959 ILOT Southern Pines North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for ajl concerned. Wherever there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.”—James Boyd, May 23, 1941. An Outstanding Career In Education The Southern Pines board of education is faced with a difficult task in finding a re placement for Dr. A. C. Dawson, Jr., ,whose resignation as superintendent of the local schools was announced a few days ago. Dr. Dawson’s administration of the schools here has been outstanding and he and his family have become very much a part of the com munity’s Ife. Dr. Dawson has been in Southern Pines 22 years—two as teacher, 12 as high school prin- ' cipal and eight as superintendent. It is obvious from this record that he has had the confi dence of the board of education and of .the community. It is a fine record, a record that can be seen not only in listing of the years but in the steady advancement of a school system that has grown and developed beyond all expectations during the past two decades. The stature of Dr. Dawson as an educator is apparent also in the responsible posts he has held in State organizations devoted to new work. North Carolina Loses An Opportunity North Carolina’s opportunity to beautify its new interstate highways and also to acquire some $800,000 in additional federal assistance was thrown away last week when the Hous*e Roads and Highway Safety Committee—ap parently under extreme pressure from the outdoor advertising lobby—killed the bill that would have made these worthy aims possit)le. The bill would have prohibited advertising signs on the highway right of way and with in 660 feet of the aright of way. A few types of signs, such as those advertising the prem ises for sale or goods produced or services rendered on the premises, would have been exempted. The bill to us seemed reasonable, setting up no more rigorous restrictions than those in force for the New York State Thru way, the New Jersey Turnpike and other modern high-speed, heavy-traffic highways. Anyone who has driven these highways can testify to the pleasantness and restfulness of being able to see the landscape and ride through the country without facing an inces sant, and often garish and ugly, stream of commercial advertising signs. As stated in previous editorials, The Pilot’s position on this matter has not been as ex treme as the convictions held by some op ponents of the signs. We have no w^sh to des troy the outdoor advertising business and outlaw all signs along all roads everywhere. But when a superbly engineered, entirely new highway is to be built through a coun tryside where no signs now exist and natural beauties abound, it makes sense to keep signs out. This, of course, is why Congress author ized the extra federal aid as a spur to state legislatures to accept the sign regulation. Millions of people all over the nation sub scribe to the opinions outlined above about the new roads. If nothing can be done about all the signs along the thousands of miles of existing high ways, these people think, at least on these new roads, the signs could and should be banned. One has only to look at the No. 1 highway parkway through Southern Pines to see how pleasant it is to ride alotfg a fine modern highway where the natural landscape is unmarred by advertising signs. Unwillingness to accept a federal regula tion may have had something to do with the Roads Committee’s rejection of the bill intro duced in Raleigh. 'The extra federal money may have seemed to some of the committee members, consciously or unconsciously, like a bribe. We would like to see supporters of the bill and legislators who could not support the bill as introduced get together on some kind of regulation about the new highways, so that if there must be billboards and other advertising signs along the interstate super highways in North Carolina, at least the ugli est and most objectionable of such signs would be prohibited. However, it is probably too late now to do anything. Too bad. Highway Chases: What’s The Answer? We are pleased to see the General Assem bly giving its attention to the matter of high way chases—officers pursuing traffic law of fenders who attempt to escape at speeds up to and more than 100 miles per hour. How ever the bill now being debated (this is writ ten early this week) has about it drawbacks that overbalance its merits. Under this Humphrey bill, an officer chas ing an automobile speeding at 80 miles an hour or more would have only to record the license number which would then become prima facie evidence that the registered own er of the vehicle was driving it. The owner could then be summoned to court. Supporters of the bill say that, if the owner were not driving, it would be possible for him then to produce evidence to that effect and, in most cases, produce the actual driver, to save his own skin. The big flaw, of course, is that this reverses the accepted American system of jurispru- denos—the presumption that a person is in nocent until proved guilty. This vital princi ple, which is tellingly cited in another con nection in a New York Times editorial re printed on this page, should not, we believe, be trifled with in even so pressing and im portant a cause as'Stopping fantastically dan gerous and sometimes lethal highway chases. Though it was perhaps not made clear in an editorial we wrote on this subject several weeks ago, our criticism in this matter is not levelled at the officers who, in giving chase and keeping it up until the fugitive is cap tured or escapes despite all that an officer can do, are simply doing their sworn duty. It is no doubt true, as they maintain, that they can’t let the word get around that all you have to do to escape arrest on the highways is go so fast that the officer in pursuit will quit because of the danger to the fugitive, himself and other motorists on the road. There are plenty of drivers, officers say, who would delight in outrunning an officer in the knowledge that the officer would break off the chase when the speed became dangerous ly high. This kind of driver, say officers, doesn’t give a hoot for himself, the motoring public, the officer or the law. One drawback, in fact, with the proposed Humphrey bill is that a car owner might have great difficulty forcing such an irre sponsible driver, who had been at the wheel of a car when its license number was taken, to admit his guilt or accept the punishment rightfully due him. A simple and basic solution to the problem, suggested by the Greensboro Daily NeWs, is to prohibit by federal law the manufacture of automobiles so powerful that they can run 80 miles an hour or more. Action along this line could be initiated through resolu tions from state legislatures throughout the nation. This would appear to be a very long procedure and it would be years before high- powered cars capable of terrific speeds could be gotten off the roads. Millions of cars ca pable of going 80 to 100 miles per hour are now on the roads and hundreds more are coming off the assembly lines daily. An avenue of approach that might bear some fruit is continued intensive driver edu cation, through school-connected courses such as we have in Southern Pines and through every other feasible avenue of approach to young people—not least, we vigorously point out, through parents who should teach re spect for traffic laws, by example and by word, all through a youngster’s childhood and teens. Most chases are led by young driv ers whose lack of respect for the law and for the pursuing officer is probably due more to adolescent instability and irresponsibility than to deliberate, vicious flaunting of high way regulations. We suspect -that these chases get started and the young drivers are going 100 miles per hour and maybe are wrecked and in the hospital before they realize what they are doing. The necessary good sense and mature judgment simply have not yet been acquired. Certainly the public—people traveling a highway on which their lives are endangered by these chases—^has a vital stake in the mat ter. If the Humphrey bill as written ■ does not pass the Senate, having already been approv ed by the House last week after hot debate, we hope that the subject will not be dropped and that some sort of legislation can be of fered, in the present Assembly session, that will at least discourage highway chases. Could an exceptionally severe penalty be put on an attempt to outrun an officer—a penalty so heavy that not even a foolish kid Would undertake to risk it? There must be some way. When Justice Is Diminished (From The New York Times) A United States Assistant At torney General, George Cochran Doub, presumed to tell the Su-. preme Court on Wednesday that when it is necessary to balance “an injustice, an inequity,” against “the safety of the Gov ernment” he thought “the people of the United States have the ' right to the benefit of the doubt.” Mr. Doub, supported in this in stance by the Solicitor General J. Lee Rankin, was defending the action of the Justice Depart ment in refusing to confront in dividuals with witnesses who had given testimony -against their loyalty. In a case which was being argued before the court an official of an engineer ing and research corporation education, which are listed elsewhere in to day’s paper. A decade ago he was president of the North Carolina Education Association to which he is Viow going in the professional position of executive secretary. His abilities will be used there for service to education on a state-wide scale. A life-long devotion to education is to our mind one of the most admirable careers, a way of life that has unmeasured influence through its effect on class after class of young * people passing through a school system. It is incidentally a career that has not merited un til recent years the attention and respect it deserves from the public—a fact that must have been disappointing to men like Dr. Daw son but also a fact that did not diminish their constant efforts. We are pleased to see edu cators on all levels becoming rated according to the importance their profession calls for. Our best wishes go to Dr. Dawson in his ‘‘It’s A New Standard Of Measure—You Know,; , In Case Strauss Should Be Confirmed” , VEPnOFOJMMBKE auReAO OF STANPi^RPS If my neighbor accuses me of anything else but this (that is, of being a bad se curity risk) and they are go ing to put me in jail or de prive me of my livelihood, I have a right to confront him. Why is this different? Why indeed? The Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, possess es no right, legal or Otherwise, to run contrary to the principles of the Bill of Rights or of the common law. Nor would it be proper or safe to give the de partment and the bureau such rights. There are many kinds of security in a nation, chief among - them the liberties of the indiv idual. We may suffer a loss in national security when some dis loyal person gives secrets to our antagonists, but we suffer much more when justice is diminished. We cannot defend ourselves against Russia or any other dic tatorship by imitating—as the Justice Department seems to be urging in its present argument— the practices that help dictators to control their subjects. The Public Speaking Discipline Essential Part Of Education To the Editor: This letter is written with a twofold purpose; to comment on the request of the School Board that Mr. Irie Leonard resign as principal of Southern Pines High School; and, to view in perspec tive that high school as an edu cational institution. I have read with interest the editorials and letters concerning Mr. Leonard and the school. Somehow the question of his resignation has become inextricably entangled with the question of the philoso phy which should underlie a school system itself. For that reason I undertake to comment on both. I do not pretend to know the School Board’s reasons for re questing Mr. Leonard’s resigna tion, and my education has taught me not to comment where I am not in possesson of the facts. This letter is addressed to those, like myself, who do not know the facts, who align on one side of the question or the other by virtue of their feelings to- wimd Mr. Leonard’s use of disci pline. This letter is addressed to those people Who stand against Mr. Leonard on this question be cause they do not agree with his enforcement of discipline in the school. As one who has had some brief experience teaching school, I can only say that discipline is. a mini mal requirement necessary to the task of imparting knowledge. Without discipline the teacher cannot begin to teach! My experience in Southern. Pines High School, four years all told, left me with two main cur rents of feeling: a sense of re ward, and, in part, a sense of a ridiculous waste of time. Cer tainly,, not all things \ about Southern Pines High School are / Landscape Of The Heart bad, but this seems to be the time to dig dirt so that is what I shall do. While at S.P.H.S. at times, along with my fellow stu dents, I was coddled and appeas ed—a sorry preparation for col lege, not to mention life itself. To be successful, a school must be staffed by teachers who know more than their students. The student, to be motivated, must try in part, to please the teach er. The creation of this situation demands an underlying philoso phy of respect for education in general and teachers in particu lar on the part of the student. What a preposterous situation it is for teachers to be forced vir tually to crawl before their stu dents! Why is this so? Because, as our school system is currently operated, the student rests as sured that no matter what he does he will not suffer grievous ly. Why is Irie Leonard forced to use discipline? Because irrespon sible students cannot, according to our philosophy of education, be dropped or treated wth indif- (From The Greensboro Daily News!) About 40 years ago Irvin S. Cobb said, “All North Carolina needs is a good press agent.” Today Nprth Carolina has as many press agents as Texas has oil wells. The press agents are dong all right. But North Carolina does not have enough philosophers, poets and saints. It has been exporting far too many of the home-grown variety—beginning with Walter Hines Page. Therefore it is good when a native-born philosopher comes home to give us of his wit and wisdom. Gerald Johnson did just that in Elliott Hall at Woman’s Col lege Wednesday night.' The occa sion was the founding of a Friends of the Library for Wom an’s College. But Gerald John son’s lecture, as usual, went far beyond the bounds of thkt mis sion. The sage of Bolton Street came home to tell us that al though' man’s knowledge of his universe has broken the bounds of outer space and pierced the heart of the atom, his knowledge about inner ' space—the land scape of the heart—leaves much to be desired. He would agree with Robert Oppenheimer that most of man’s current knowledge about his universe was not in the textbooks when most mature men and women were in school; but then Dr. Johnson would move on to explain that the se crets of honor, courage and love have been probed by man since the beginningfof time. The prob lem of good and evil—the su preme issue of this or any other time—remains as challenging as ever. But it has a new pertinence in a time of supreme danger, when man has forged weapons suffi ciently powerful to destroy him self. The average man today. Dr. Johnson concedes, cannot know much of. the ' knowledge which concerns Dr. Oppenheimer. But in libraries, in books, in colleges and universities, he may still find knowledge of good and evil and how man has dealt with it in the past. And such knowledge is supremely important. If man has triumphed in the past, he can do it again. That was the message of a Tar Heel philosopher who went on from Riverton to Greensboro to Baltimore, thence to world ''fame. ference. There’s an old bit of Chinese philosophy that says water finds its own level. Until we stop the damming processes that prevail throughout our edu cational system, until the stu dent is made to stand on his own merits or sink, men like Irie Leonard must be forced either to use discipline or to succumb and admit themselves nothing more than sitters for long-overgrown babies. SIEGER HERR CANNEY Class of 1953, S.P.H.S. B.A., Duke University, 1957 3708 Chapel Hill Road Durham, N. C. ‘Ready, Aim' stJ:—IC ~ 1, i£ST\ IC .Scrtoot I \ which was working for the Gov ernment had been deprived of his security clearance on the ba sis of statements made by his friends or friends .of his now di vorced wife. To most of us, who are at least casually familiar with Anglo-Saxon conceptions of justice, the principle that an ac cused person is considered guil ty until proved innocent and that he need not be confronted with his accuseio is an intoler able heresy. Chief Justice War ren seemed to be making this application when he asked: Grains of Sand Ready To Go It is rumored that the Aggres sor occupation forces had chosen another citizen to take the plac of Mayor Robert S. Ewing, fol lowing the latter’s forcible ejec tion from the invasion scene. The man chosen to be occupa tion mayor, they tell it, was Cap! A. R. McDaniel. Says the indignant Captain; “I never accepted. I refused to be a Quisling for enemy forces!” Oh To Be A Hero! Seen walking by himself up the railroad tracks on Invasion Day, a particularly round-faced, pink-cheeked ' young Aggressor, softly whistling “The Bridge on The River Kwai.” Nof Quite That Bad Bewildered citizen, returning to town on “Invasion Day,” con fesses to some confusion. “I knew there was a lot of bad feeling over the situation in the East Southern Pines School, but I didn’t realize they had to call in the troops!” Right On The BaU . Mrs. Robert S. Ewing, wife of the Hon. Mayor scheduled for early “execution” Friday, was called to the telephone Thurs- . day night. Said a deep male voice: “Hi! I hear your husband is going to be shot at dawn. How about a date for tomorrow night?” It's An HI Wind There was some pretty brisk firing in town as the liberating troops moved in Friday morning. The Aggressors put up sharp re sistance and casualties were re ported. As one such was being lugged along protesting loudly to his captors, a waitress in a well-known restaurant stuck her head out the door. “He’s not dead yet,” she called, “I’ll take him. Bring, him in.” Editors And Judges Among highlights of the edi torial writers’ conference at Chapel Hill recently were the following pearls of wit and wis dom: Malcolm Seawell (on himself), “I hear some people are calling me ‘the mouthiest attorney gen eral in the history of North Caro lina.’ ” Dr. Lorin MacKinney, profes sor of Medieval History at UNC, was one of the reading public invited to pass judgment on the editorial pages. Said he, of his method of judging: “To tell you the truth, I toqk the editorial pages up to bed with me. Some of them put me to sleep and some woke me up!” Prof. MacKinney came down hard on “those editorials telling everybody to get out and vote. The way you editors bellow at your readers: ‘Get out the vote! Hurry up and vote!’ You’d think the country could be saved if just enough people would go to the polls. It isn’t how many vote, but HOW they vote.” The Prof, snorted like a warhorse: “I’d like to keep some of ’em home and vote twice myself!” Prof.-Newsman Walter Spear man introduced the judges. And in masterly Spearman style. When he came to Fanny Gray (Good Morning, Miss Dove) Pat ton he spread his wings and soared. After describing her plu perfect fitness for the task of judging the works of editors, he said; “For my concludng observa tion, I shall turn to one of Mrs. Patton’s own stories: the scene where the old gardener is de scribing his lady-employer to a friend—‘I can say one thing about her,’ the gardener says”— and Walter grinned impishly out at the assembled editors,—“ ‘she’s a prime judge of garden fertili- The PILOT Published Every Thurjiday by THE PILOT, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD—1944 Katharine Boyd C. Benedict Vance Derby Dan S. Ray C. G.'Council Mary Scott Newton Bessie Cameron Smith Editor Associate Editor News Editor Gen. Mgr. Advertising Business Society Composing Room Dixie B. Ray, Michael Valen, Jas per Swearingen, Thomas Mattocks and James C. Morris. Subscription Rates: One Year $4. 6 mos. $2. 3 mos. $1 Entered at the Postoffice at South ern Pines, N. C., as second class mail matter. c* t 3 $> f) Member National Editorial Assn, and N. C. Press Assn,